Cliff Huxtable will likely go down in history as the best TV dad ever, so it’s only fitting that Bill Cosby, the man who portrayed him, spent Father’s Day doling out parenting wisdom.

The 76-year-old comedian answered questions on everything from his career to his favorite color (more on that below – the response, believe it or not, was pretty amazing) during an “Ask Me Anything” session on the social media site Reddit on Sunday. When asked whether he felt optimistic about today’s youth, the dad-of-five offered up some words of wisdom to parents.

“One of the most interesting situations in parenting is to give instructions to your child that you feel are very very important, pertaining to behavior, manners, pertaining to having work finished… believing in the importance of learning and hopefully not being afraid of math, science, et cetera, and then to visit a teacher and have the teacher describe your child in a way that you will say to the teacher ‘That can’t be my child. I didn’t bring him or her up that way.’ Well, with a smile, I say – this is True! For the parent…. But we must all remember the time when we were children, and mother or father would give us instructions – how to behave – and we wouldn’t tell them the truth…. So that when you say to the teacher ‘That’s not my child, I didn’t bring them up that way’ you have to remember that there’s also a possibility after that kid leaves the house, the kid’s on their own. And we’ve all done things similar to that.”

As a parent, it is sometimes hard for me to remember that kids make mistakes. I’m not talking about Sharpie-on-the-kitchen-cupboard mistakes – those ones don’t bother me. But when they tell little lies, when they are irresponsible or even unkind, it weighs on me. I’m probably too quick to interpret these tiny transgressions as the start of a downward spiral to delinquency, when really they are just a normal part of growing up. Children learn by pushing boundaries and testing limits. My job isn’t to stop my girls from ever making a mistake, it’s to help them learn the best way to deal with it when they do. And hopefully, down the road, they’ll be strong enough and smart enough to recognize the mistakes that aren’t worth making.

Now, as for Bill Cosby’s favorite color, here was his surprisingly lovely response: “Don’t know. I think, first of all, it depends on if you’re wearing it or if you see it, and sometimes my favorite color would be green, which means that we’re not in a drought. Sometimes my favorite color might be brown, because we’re landing safely. Sometimes my favorite color might be white, because we had a great snow, and the morning I wake up and I see it.”

Get weekly e-mails with development articles, parenting news, and more!

Hot Topic

We can’t guarantee your kids will eat everything you pack in their lunches — heck, we can’t promise they will take one single bite — but these super-cute totes and sacks sure can make food tempting. Think form and function in one sweet package. You might just need one to liven up your desk-side dining. Shopping… Read more »